LATEST ADDITIONS

According to a report released last week by Cahners In-Stat Group, a high-tech market research firm, the market for personal digital music players using audio compression technologies will experience a tremendous increase in growth through the next several years. Nearly $800 million in player sales are expected in 2003, spurred largely by widespread Internet access. The report also states that products in this segment will initially focus on downloading technologies like MP3, and over the next 12 months consumers should expect to see more features integrated into the players such as FM tuners, increased storage capacity, and security systems like Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).

Last week, Philips Semiconductors announced the CD10 chipset, which the company describes as the world's first two-chip solution to deliver CD-RW (compact disc, re-writeable) compatibility for CD audio players. According to Philips, one chip provides a data amplifier and laser supply circuit, while the other is the digital servo, decoder, and DAC. As a result, Philips claims that the new chipset allows designers to build audio players that can read all forms of CDs without an increase in component count.

Winter had just touched down in Santa Fe two days before the recording sessions were to begin, leading Wes Phillips to wonder if the damp air would wreak havoc with tuning. But he needn't have worried, writing that violinist Ida Levin "played with such intense concentration that sometimes she seemed about to levitate off the floor as she chased a melodic line into the ether." In Duet: And Two to Carry Your Soul Away, Ida Levin and John Atkinson join Wes Phillips in chronicling the recording from both musical and technical perspectives.

Internet music retailer CDnow has formed a partnership with Sony Corporation and Time Warner to build a music and video retailing behemoth. The July 13 announcement came in the wake of online bookseller Amazon.com's recent move into the music market. With the backing of corporate giants Sony and Time Warner, CDnow could be able to mount a challenge to the growing presence of Amazon, which is also expanding into toy sales and consumer electronics.